Irdeto, the company behind Denuvo DRM, has launched TraceMark, a new solution they are trying to tackle prevent further game leaks. This solution was announced at this year’s GDC, and while its operation isn’t anything particularly revolutionary, the truth is that it could work quite well.

During the TraceMark presentation, Irdeto explained that this new technology allows developers to add a watermark to each of your game files. This watermark is invisible to others, but it allows developers to track and identify the source of the leak of their games, which could be very helpful in stopping it or at least reducing its impact.

This protection system is primarily recommended for two major pre-launch development phases, beta testing and pre-launch analysis by dedicated media and content creators. Thanks to him it would be possible prevent leaks and ensure safe distribution copies of games during all the stages they have to go through before they reach the market.

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Theoretically, after the release of the game, this protection system will be removed, i.e. will not be present in its final copies, so it shouldn’t have any effect on the game’s performance or proper functioning. The truth is, remembering what happened with the huge leak that Insomniac suffered recently, it’s easy to see why Irdeto created TraceMark. This solution makes more sense today than ever and could help major developers protect their games from theft and leaks of this type.

All in all, we’ll have to wait and see how this workaround is eventually implemented and removed before the games that use it are launched. TraceMark was designed as cross-platform protection toolmeaning we’ll see it integrated into both Xbox and Nintendo Switch, PC and iOS games, but not PS5 games.